Generalized Cutpoint Control (GCC)

Crude Switch

GCC (GENERALIZED CUTPOINT CONTROL)

INFERENTIAL CONTROL OF FRACTIONATORS

Working over twenty years with crude units, Dr. Y. Zak Friedman of Petrocontrol, developed a form of inferential control that is totally based on process engineering procedures. These controls have been implemented on about forty crude units and other fractionators with a high degree of success. Several additional units are at various stages of implementation.

The crude unit control technology has proven to be:

Responsive to crude switches.

With controls kept on, even difficult crude switches are accomplished within one hour, and during the switch product qualities are kept constant.

Simple to calibrate.

GCC requires only a simple calibration procedure, which makes use of steady state data. The technique itself is robust enough to work without calibration, but given inaccuracies of flow, pressure and temperature measurements, precision improves after steady state calibration.

Self tuned.

Commissioning does not require an elaborate tuning procedure. The model will work instantly upon commissioning. Furthermore, there is no need to feed any data whatsoever before crude switches. Detection of crude characteristics is completely automatic.